Shifting engineering education from disciplinary to transdisciplinary practice

This paper examines current global challenges and the ways in which engineering education must adapt. In particular, thepaper argues the need for a transdisciplinary approach to engineering education in which the methods, tools, concepts, andtheories from multiple disciplines are integrated in a holistic manner to achieve a common understanding of complexissues, questions, or problems that incorporates both academic and non-academic knowledge. The paper contrastsinterdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches based on experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in theCollege of Engineering at Texas Tech University. Based on successes with the graduate transdisciplinary program andstudent feedback, an outline for extending transdisciplinary education to undergraduate engineering programs isproposed, and questions for further research are identified. Two survey results on transdisciplinary education are alsoreported in this paper.